Vera de Kok - WikiMedia & GSoW

Vera de Kok - QED - 2014

In November 2015 The Wikipedia community was awarded the Erasmus Prize for "For "[promoting] the dissemination of knowledge through a comprehensive and universally accessible encyclopaedia. To achieve that, the initiators of Wikipedia have designed a new and effective democratic platform. The prize specifically recognises Wikipedia as a community — a shared project that involves tens of thousands of volunteers around the world.""

The Wikipedia Community wins the Erasmus Prize

In this video the first person you see is GSoW member and WikiMedia admin Vera de Kok. I want you to know how proud we are of Vera, she has been a part of the GSoW project since March 2012, when she was deleting one of my images I was uploading because it did not have the correct licensing. Vera noticed the "theme" of many of my images and realized that we shared a lot in common, we both were critical thinkers out to improve Wikipedia for the betterment of everyone. And we both loved photography.

Vera has not only uploaded thousands of photos taken personally, but has been responsible for adding 11,552 images (so far) and audio to WikiMedia Commons in order for them to be used freely on the Internet and in Wikipedia projects.

There is no way to be able to show you a representative sample of her achievements as they are far too numerous. But if you are curious about what she has achieved take a look at her WikiMedia Contribution account.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles?limit=50&user=1Veertje&ilshowall=1

To be clear, Vera did not win the Erasmus Prize, but she is one of many bright lights in the world of Wikipedia that is doing far more than her share of work. She is one of many amazing people who volunteer their time helping to educate the world.

We at GSoW are very proud of WikiMedia and very very proud that we count Vera de Kok as one of our own.

Thank you Vera for all that you do.

Leon, Jelena, Vera and Peter at QED recording podcast for Skepticality